In one of my classes recently, it was mentioned that pikas are on their way to the endangered species list due to rapid habitat loss from the warming of their environment. Pikas, a species that looks like a mixture of a hamster and a bunny, living in high alpine, talus slopes, are some of my favorite animals to see when hiking. Being able to survive in such habits is no easy feat for these little guys. Above tree line, winds are whipping and wicked storms are rolling in frequently. Pikas are one hardcore species on top of being quite adorable as well.
An article by The National Wildlife Federation explained that pikas have already lost up to 1/3 of their natural habitat in some areas. Because pikas are intolerant of high temperatures, they live high up in altitude where they can find a cooler climate. The National Wildlife Federation also explains that due to the shortening of the snow season, the pikas are being left with less places to live as the snow melts sooner and sooner in the year. Pikas are being pushed up the mountain as lower elevation snow melts, which eventually causes them to run out of places to go the further they are pushed up. Snowpack is already shrinking at statistically significant rates in quite a few areas including the Southern Rockies which are near and dear to many of us Coloradans.
The National Parks Service Monitoring Project has indicated that temperatures greater than 77.9 degrees Fahrenheit will lead to the death of a pika in just a few hours. This article is a summary of their Pikas in Peril monitoring project in which they concluded that pikas are declining and could go extinct in several parks around the US by the end of this century. In specific, Rocky Montana National Park was studied and it was concluded that the habitat destruction could lead to connectivity barriers and abrupt halts to animal dispersal and gene flow for these species.
The question moving forward is how in jeopardy is this species? Is it time to put them on the endangered species list now? Or do we wait until the population has further declined to put any regulation on the species and their habitat? Personally, I think we are better off safe than sorry by adding them to the list. I'd like to believe we want to protect the biodiversity of these high alpine areas, but there simply isn't enough data (or at least consistent data) to 'prove' these species need to be protected. Hopefully, going forward, we can take the necessary steps to protect these little guys so that they can be around for more hikes in the future through more consistent and in depth data sets that shows the vulnerability of such a special (and badass) species.
